


noxious (forget-me-not)

by dyspholic



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: And Red, Blue - Freeform, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Toxic Relationship, extended a few months later bcause why not, lots of blue, okay i lied it is more like a medium sized amount of angst, written for voltron positivty day 2k17!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 21:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11261010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyspholic/pseuds/dyspholic
Summary: It's midnight and he doesn't want Keith to leave.





	noxious (forget-me-not)

He used to sit on the beach at dusk, watching waves splash onto the shore and washing away yesterday. The sea was his favourite place back home. It was once  _ his _ heaven, but now it reminded him of Earth and Earth was bad. Home was pain. 

Lance works like a machine whose screws are loosened and he's falling apart, but no one tightens his screws. They never notice his silence. 

(He doesn't want anyone to fix him, but he wants someone to want to kiss his bruises and tell him he'll be okay, and he's a juxtaposition because his thoughts don't make sense, he doesn't make sense.)

Space is lonely, and he is empty, and his mind gets so dark sometimes he thinks it's a black hole.

  
  


They ask him if he's okay and he doesn’t lie. He doesn’t tell the truth either, because he doesn't know the answer himself. (He says  _ yes, I'm fine _ and they all give him this  _ sad _ smile, because they all knew he wasn't okay but he had to be.)

Lance is there when they talk strategies but no one listens to him and he always ends up trailing off halfway through his sentence; because  _ Shiro, the leader  _ and  _ Pidge, the brains  _ and  _ Hunk, the mechanic _ , but then there was  _ Keith, the fast-thinker  _ and Allura and Coran have respect because they know so much; and Lance is a blank line. He doesn't know what he is, and they don't care enough to tell him what character he plays apart from the clown.   
  
He talks in half-sentences that no one hears, and he longs for someone to just stop and listen but no one understands because they’ve never answered his prayers before and they’re not going to start. He always comes out the loser, because he  _ couldn't do anything right  _ and they don't give out participation prizes.   
  
He doesn’t lie but he doesn’t tell the truth; and he’s almost too afraid to love, because they were in a war and loving means you lose more than you can afford.   
  
(They lie too, sometimes.  _ I'm okay, Lance  _ and fake smiles that don’t quite reach their eyes and hiding their limp or their arm that doesn't straighten out the whole way, because they are battered and bruised and in the middle of war.)

  
  


Lance’s nose is too pointy and his chin too long, and he cracks terrible jokes but laughs a real laugh too little. He’s not perfect. 

Keith doesn't talk much but he spins stories of  _ I might be able to help _ and Lance ends up trapped in his web. They talk and they kiss and sometimes Keith gives him messy handjobs late at night. 

Lance likes him because he forgets when he's with Keith, but he hates him because he never stays. They always end up walking away from each other with dried tears and hands curled into fists and  _ love you, need you _ .   
  


He tried mythberries, a drug on an alien planet once. It made his heart race, his palms sweaty but adrenaline rushed through him like he was in battle. He wanted more even though every fibre of his body screamed at him to stop.

Keith, he thinks, feels like that.

They are a constant battle, red against blue and their personalities  _ clashing, clashing, clashing _ , but not touching Keith was even worse. Lance loves Keith and he was drunk on him, like Narcissus looking at his own reflection in that stupid pool of water for the first time, and he doesn't know how to stop. 

Lance says yes and Keith answers him no and they never say what they mean. 

It is a game of toxicity they play every time they speak; hands curled against thighs and words disguised as purple in blue. 

  
  


It’s midnight and he doesn’t want him to go. “Please,” he says.

The other boy shifts to face him, lips curling into a lazy smile tinted with dark crimson, a double-edged blade at the edge of his neck. The mattress digs into Lance's side, an uncomfortable reminder that the world is too small for the two of them, but it doesn't matter much in their little competition of words.

"Maybe." Keith drawls, the bite in his tone a familiar sound. "Why would you want me to?” 

Lance doesn’t answer. He watches the quickened rise-and-fall of Keith's chest, thinking of hands and heated kisses and uncertain promises of today, tomorrow. Salt in cuts and fingers pressing onto yellowed bruises, whispers of  _ please _ never enough. He traces the outlines of tranquility between the freckles on the downward slope of the other boy's shoulders, close enough to feel every exhale.

Sometimes, Lance tries to figure him out, metaphor after metaphor until his eyes blur.

Keith  is the nails digging into your palms as you grit your teeth, and the burn of unshed tears. He is the song of sirens, beautiful and a spell and a curse, glowing eyes and  _ too much, not enough _ .

He  is the angry red of screams and the shatter of voices against your scarred skin; isolation and desperation and loneliness. He hides behind recklessness and black fingerless gloves, fists against metal and the snap of bones breaking. He is the pound of bass against raw drums and the beauty in madness; the way waves crashed onto shores and the people who risk their lives to catch a glimpse of hurricanes. 

Keith is fire and words yelled in a fight that you don't mean. He is the crack of knuckles before a fight and the blood smeared across your face and tender fingers, tracing the scars on your hip. He burns, and it  _ hurts _ because Lance is water and they aren't meant to mix.

Flames dance across his hands and their orange tongues flicker at his shins like damned souls in hell grasping for heaven, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t smother the flames and he doesn’t turn around and run even though he  _ could _ .

Keith tells him to stop loving him so much in between kisses, but Lance held his crayons with the wrong hand in preschool, and coloured the little boy’s eyes red and his hair blue, and the teacher told him  _ no, it’s the other way round _ , but he never listened and he’s still not listening. 

Keith kisses Lance like he means it, like they would both get out of this fight unharmed but it was a losing battle. He walks like he's a god and maybe he  _ is  _ Lance’s heaven, but he's hell and he burns whenever he touches Lance. Keith leaves new wounds with every kiss and Lance hurts, because he’s seawater and the salt is stinging, he's breaking but he couldn't walk away.

Keith is all kinds of fucked up, the sort that makes you want  _ more _ and  _ less _ and please stay away from me but don’t leave me. He is everything and nothing and when Lance locks their fingers together, he is someone too easy to fall in love with.   
  


(Coincidences, fate; red strings tangled around their fingers and pulling so hard it left pink lines, criss-crossing across their skin. Broken words and broken hearts because they both missed home, but it hurts less in his arms because he  _ understood _ . He finds heaven again, almost, in Keith.)

 

"Yeah," Lance repeats, pulling away, dazed. "Stay." He trails his hand across the bed sheets, somehow finding the small of Keith's back, amazed at how he can make the other boy inhale sharply with a single move. "Need you so much."  


It’s midnight and  Lance falls asleep with Keith in his bed, but he's not there when he wakes up. 

**Author's Note:**

> yeah so i went back to add lots of words no one is reading this who cares


End file.
